


Prophecy

by elfin



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 01:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: One of Agnus Nutter's prophecies is yet to come true.





	Prophecy

‘Are you opening that bottle, my dear, or starting an intimate relationship with it?’

The Baco Noir finally gives up its cork with a pop and Crowley responds with a triumphant, ’Ha!’ 

‘Well done, darling. You’ve opened the wine. At last.’ Aziraphale holds up two glasses for him to pour.

‘Post-apocalyptic angel is a lot more bloody cheeky than his predecessor.’

‘Post-apocalyptic angel hasn’t had a drink in over forty-eight hours.’

‘Really?’ Crowley seems honestly gobsmacked. ‘What have you been doing for the last two days?’ Putting down the bottle, he accepts the glass from Aziraphale. 

‘Cataloguing.’ The angel sips the red appreciatively. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Drinking. Heavily.’

‘Without me? I’m hurt.’ He’s surprised to find that he is, a little. 

‘I did call. You didn’t answer.’ Crowley steps around Aziraphale’s desk. ‘I didn’t disturb you once I knew your shop was in tact. I figured you’d be busy.’ The angel watches him move a couple of papers with the tip of a long finger. ‘I did think there would have been a wine pairing to go with the… cataloguing.’ His voice falters on the last word, almost like he’s been distracted. The angel holds a breath he didn’t need to take in the first place and watches Crowley run his finger over the words on the notepad, tracing the slanted handwriting. Aziraphale glances up to see the demon’s lips shaping the words he was reading, deliberately and slowly. ‘What’s this, angel?’ His tone is guarded. Crowley isn’t, by nature, the guarded type, and Aziraphale worries that he’s pushed too far.

All he can do is try for nonchalance and hope he gets somewhere in the general ball park. ’What’s what, my dear?’

‘This: “and the serpent shall dance with the light”. It sounds like one of Agnus Nutter’s improbable prophecies.’

‘That’s because it is. I made copious notes when I read the book cover to cover.’ He moves slowly, cautiously, to stand at Crowley’s side. ‘As I recall, this was the last one I noted down, on a new page. It… it’s the only one that remained after Adam’s… resurrection of the shop.’

Crowley falls quiet for a long time, finger still moving over the written words. Finally, he asks, ‘Did you interpret this one too?’

‘I don’t know.’ He’s relieved that he didn’t scribble a possible interpretation in the margin the way he did with some of the earlier ones. ‘As I remember, at the time, I thought it may be referring…’ he glances up to catch Crowley staring at him, or at least in his direction, and finishes in a rush, ‘to the two of us.’

‘You think Agnus prophesied us… dancing?’

Aziraphale looks away, looks down. It seemed like a good idea at the time, when he thought about it, after the non-event, and he found the notepad back on his desk where Adam apparently left it. Now, though, he’s just embarrassed. ‘She was right about everything else.’ He rather hopes the floor will open up and swallow him. Instead, a warm finger slips under his chin and coaxes his head up. 

‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, angel. It’s just that… if you want to dance, you’ll need to teach me the moves.’

Aziraphale knows his mouth is open. Crowley helpfully closes it for him. ‘You’ve never… danced?’

‘No.’

‘But, my dear fellow… all these years.’

‘I’ve never really bothered with it. I mean, it’s all so messy.’

‘But you’re a demon. Doesn’t it come with the territory?’

Crowley waves a dismissive hand in the air. ‘There’s a… small department in a dark corner of Hell that deals with that sort of thing. But people, they design their own tortures. These days it’s more cerebral, less… pokey.’

‘And up here, on earth? You must have seduced people.’

‘I’ve seduced people to sin. I’ve never felt the urge to get physically involved.’ Something seems to occur to him then, and his expression changes, eyebrows rising above the rim of his expensive, steampunk sunglasses. ‘Are you saying you’ve been dancing your way through history?’

Aziraphale has the decency to look embarrassed for the second time that evening. ‘I’ve had… a few partners over the millennia. All of them male, all of them special to me in their own way.’

‘So I’m one in a long line?’ The hurt in his voice surprises them both, going by the curl of Crowley’s lips.

‘No, my dear. If you’d do me the honour of dancing with me, you’d be the last in a relatively short line.’ Crowley pushes his shades back into his red hair with an uncertain hand, and Aziraphale meets his glassy, confused, serpentine gaze with a soft one of his own. ‘Honestly, how can you not know that by now?’

A forked tongue darts out nervously to lick dry lips. ‘I… didn’t know.’

The angel shakes his head. ‘Obviously I was being far, far too subtle. It has only been six thousand years after all, give or take.’ He’s slightly disgraced by the gentle sarcasm in his tone.

‘It’s just not something I’ve ever.... I mean, I suppose it has been a long time. You should have said something earlier.’

‘I didn’t want to rush you into anything, or to spoil what we have. Eternity would be the worst bore without you, my dear fellow.’ 

Crowley’s smile is warm. ‘I agree with you there, Zira. I’m not sure how I’d have coped during the last millennia without your company. Alone... I might have lost my mind.’ 

They’re standing so close together, Aziraphale realises, barely room for the wine glasses and the bottle between them. He wonders what would happen if he took advantage, decides against it and asks,

‘I wonder, dear boy, if you’d mind if I kissed you.’

Golden snake eyes shrink to slits, and instead of replying Crowley dips his head and touches his mouth to Aziraphale’s experimentally. The angel doesn’t miss a beat, sliding his hands over his demon’s face and holding him loosely as he licks his tongue over Crowley’s lips. 

He may be new to it, but he’s a fast learner. He must have seen it all over the many, many years, he just hasn’t participated. He pushes his forked tongue gently into Aziraphale’s mouth and finally, finally, they share a kiss. 

The imagined walls collapse, and glass smashes, wine spills, as they forget everything but each other.

~

Neither of them know how long it’s been since that first kiss, how many times the sun has set and risen. They don’t really care, but Crowley checks the date on his phone while Aziraphale fetches the whisky and orange marmalade he’s been saving, apparently, for this very morning. It’s gone four in the afternoon, but that detail feels of little consequence. If Aziraphale wants a breakfast fit for a king, that’s what they’ll have, whatever time of day it might be.

The next day they take a walk in the park, arm in arm and hand in hand. Crowley can’t bare to detach, and he finds himself periodically biting Aziraphale’s shoulder, gently through his shirt, or stealing a taste of the clean skin below his ear. He hopes it’s something that’ll pass. Other demons would piss themselves laughing if they knew how to laugh. Or piss. Even after six thousand years he’s still amazed by the little things others of his kind are missing out on. Not that they’d see it that way. 

At the edge of the lake, the ducks approach cautiously, treating them almost but not quite like strangers, but their suspicion doesn’t last beyond the first handful of oats and soon the two of them have a captive audience, at least until the food runs out. 

They take tea at the Ritz, their usual table free as usual despite their lack of a booking. If they sit closer to one another than usual, the waiter doesn’t mention it. If they feed one another morsels from each other’s plates, and gaze at one another like they’re seeing for the first time, they’re not hurting anyone. In fact, hurting anyone is the furthest things from Crowley’s mind. And if London’s a more peaceful, more friendly and kinder place for a few weeks, no one really notices. It’ll just get lost in the noise. Eventually, everything will return to normal.

Well, almost everything.


End file.
